Vusi Mona
Allegations that teachers are not being adequately included in discussions aro und South Africa’s new school curriculum, but are instead being caught up in c ommittees and bureaucracy, are dogging the vital rewriting process.
The new curriculum, expected to be launched at the end of January, will be pha sed in by January 1998. Leading educationists and teachers’ organisations say the process of crafting the curriculum is bogged down in too much bureaucracy, academic rationality and theoretical logic – so much so that teachers find th
emselves as onlookers of a curriculum being developed for them by outside spec ialists.
The new curriculum will introduce eight “learning areas” to replace the curren t subject system. Learning-area committees have been tasked with identifying t he learning outcomes – what pupils will be expected to know and be able to do at the end of their studies – in each area. Among the various stakeholders on the committees are representatives from teachers’ organisations – said to have a token s
tatus meant to legitimise the process.
“This should not be happening, particularly at a time when we are trying to pr omote teacher participation and freedom as well as democracy in the classroom, ” says Professor Arend Carl, a curriculum specialist attached to the Faculty o f Education at the University of Stellenbosch.
“Teachers have a cardinal role to play in curriculum development because they are directly involved in classroom practice. Without their involvement and sup port we cannot successfully implement a new curriculum,” Carl said.
His view is corroborated by Professor Danie Schreuder, also of Stellenbosch Un iversity, who says the curriculum development currently underway is “flawed”.
“Without teachers being involved, it’s like the top management of a car-manufa cturing company designing a new model in the boardroom while on the factory fl oor workers are still manufacturing a 1954 model.”
He says the situation can be rectified by more interaction between the learnin g-area commitees and teachers. “The learning-area committees should hold more workshops with teachers so that they can feed teachers’ views into their commi ttee work.”
The National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) arg ues that the learning-area committees are already “dominated by persons who ar e not teachers and the committees are mainly driven by the labour and training sector”. This, warns Naptosa’s Andrew Pyper, is a “dangerous precedent becaus
e it entrenches the marginalisation of teachers in education-policy matters”.
Naptosa is worried that when the new curriculum is implemented, many teachers will be unprepared. It advises that the target date for implementation be post poned, so that teachers can be better included.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, while agreeing with sentiments t hat “bureacrats have taken over the curriculum development process”, says it i s nevertheless convinced that it is “essential the new curriculum is implement ed by January 1998.” The union argues that “students and teachers on the groun d are demanding that these changes take place and that they take place as soon as possib
le.”
The haste accompanying curriculum change and the accompanying dissatisfaction about teacher involvement are likely to make this a hotly contested issue in t he new year.